A colour, a place, a date

Xavier Glikson,
Text from the Atelier du soleil exhibition , Fraïsse-des-Corbières, 2009

A colour, a place, a date. Another colour, another place, another date. From close to close, the colors blend or clash, sculpting on canvas not the body of an individual, but the memory of his or her movements.
Like pictorial biographies, Calendriers and Parcours de vie by Pierre Millotte translate the chronology of an individual’s movements into color. Red Paris, blue Brittany, violet Alsace, orange Corsica – the artist’s palette reflects a geographical division of the territory. Territory and reality sometimes resurface in the documents that accompany the paintings: texts, photos of places, portraits.
This constant concern to inventory and keep track of our lives can be found throughout the artist’s work, as in this older series which, in the form of city maps, lists the sleeping places of various people. Here again, painting is at the service of a skilfully codified biography, letting the burst of color breathe a luminous, joyous breath into the paintings.
Whether the systems of representation are chronological or topographical, their expressive power is measured by the series that emerge from them and the surprises they hold in store for us.